Monday, October 30, 2006

Sidebar Additions

"While sitting around a breakfast nook drinking with some high school friends yesterday, the topic turned to blogs. When I mentioned I blogged, a woman in my class commented that a blog seemed a totally inconsequential--almost delusional--vehicle for indulging self-absorption.

"Don't you just say what you do every day and expect people to read it?" she asked, almost rhetorically. She wasn't seeking an answer, merely validation of her insinuation that blogs are waste of everyone's time.

Though I hardly agreed with her, how can one who doesn't blog understand its value and potential? So, I merely said, "I wouldn't write a book about what I do every day and call it art. What makes you think that's what I do on my blog?"

Far be it from me to try to defend the blog as lacking in self-indulgence. Aren't blogs susceptible to the same level of artistic indulgence as other kinds of writing?

Absolutely. Like all artistic endeavors, blogs can range from the good to the bad to the ugly" Aside from titling her blog with one of favorite French expressions, Ms. L'Esprit's entries are chock of the (sorry!) Spirit of the L'Esprit.

The link that led me to Ms. Esprit (et tous les choses comme ca) was the self-declared World of Yaxlich, a blogger who has mastered the self-referential thrid person monologue, which, as we all now know from the dreaded "You-reform" in Sweden caused severe delusional self-perception as "(a) very significant change in Swedish occurred in the 1960s, with the so-called du-reformen, "the you-reform". Previously, the proper way to address people of the same or higher social status had been by title and surname. The use of herr ("Mr" or "Sir"), fru ("Mrs" or "Ma'am") or fröken ("Miss") was only considered acceptable in initial conversation with strangers of unknown occupation, academic title or military rank. The fact that the listener should preferably be referred to in the third person tended to further complicate spoken communication between members of society" (excerpted from here).

Perhaps Mr. Yaxlich is not a lutefisk lover. Perhaps his style owes more to the Ghanian communicative process whereby "all speakers have a wealth of indirectness strategies to work with, including circumlocution (skirting the issue); indirectly authored speech forms, such as proverbs, metaphors, riddles, tales, and hyperbole; evasion; innuendo; pseudo-soliloquy (ostensibly talking to oneself); nonverbal strategies (sometimes including special props and costumes); the use of intermediaries; and pronoun mismatches. But the circumstances of application and frequency of use of specific indirectness strategies can vary from culture to culture. "

Whatever his basis for the one cool remove method, a visit to the World of Yaxlich is worth applying for a visa.